Isaiah 40:21 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

This is a rhetorical question, but a very important one that needs to keep being asked every generation. It’s kind of like God is saying, “Hey, you dimwits, haven’t you learned anything?” It’s like Paul wrote to the Romans: “What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20) As more and more scientists have shown, it is a mathematical impossibility that the universe exists as it does by chance, and if it’s not by chance, that requires a Creator. That’s essentially the argument Isaiah is making here, but he’s making it without all the scientific window dressing. There are only two real reasons to deny a Creator, and only one of those is honest. That honest reason is that we can’t understand Him. To which I say, “Well, duh! Could an ant understand you?” The comparison is actually even more drastic than that, which is why God so graciously reaches down to interact with us, speaking directly through prophets at times and causing the Bible to be written. The other reason to deny the Creator is far more common, and it is totally dishonest: the simple desire to avoid accountability. As SpaceX has been demonstrating, when engineers create something they have every reason to expect it to perform as designed, and when it doesn’t, they have every reason to tear it apart (physically or metaphorically) and redo it. We don’t like that God has every right to do that with us! Just as engineers set performance parameters for their creations, so God sets such parameters for us, and performing within them is what produces longevity on several levels. God’s rules for mankind, starting with the 10 Commandments, are the performance parameters that produce the greatest good. Failing to understand those parameters, or trying to deny that they exist, only produces heartache and destruction.

I didn’t set out to write “An Engineering Proof of God” there! I was thankfully raised with the awareness of our Creator, but I certainly can’t claim to have always stayed within my “design parameters!” The longer I live, the more amazing it is to me that God actually cares so much about us. That level of caring is certainly beyond human ability, by definition supernatural. That He wouldn’t just swat us down is proof that “The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.” (Numbers 14:18) I am very much the beneficiary of His mercy, but I don’t want to keep testing it! Of course, I have the assurance of John 3:16 and a whole host of New Testament statements of what God has done for me in Christ, so I need to operate in grateful obedience as a result. After all, He has gone so far as to give me an intimate, personal relationship with Him by His Spirit, and I must never take that for granted.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for this year You’ve brought us through. Calendars are human constructs, but they can be useful. In the coming year may I indeed “see You more clearly, love You more dearly, follow You more nearly, day by day,” as the song says, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!